


Very Nearly Did

by DilynAliceBlake



Series: Jefferson/Hamilton [6]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7513003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DilynAliceBlake/pseuds/DilynAliceBlake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How about that mother fuckin company dance?  !!?!<br/>Look, if you aren't bored with this universe's spin offs by now then go ahead and read the thing.</p><p>"Bruh..." Hercules says, and for once it's quiet.  His boisterous personality has been so thoroughly overshadowed that it's no surprise he doesn't even attempt to redirect attention towards himself.<br/>"Yeah," Laurens agrees.  "That about covers it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"What kind of a company throws a _Ballroom Formal_ to celebrate the end of the fiscal year?"  
"Alexander," Eliza prods lightly, "We _met_ at one of these formal dances."  
Alexander gives a strained smile.  "Well then, my darling wife, I suppose they can't be all bad.  I'll get us some wine."  
He moves through the small groups at the edge of the room to make his way to the refreshments table, and spots Thomas Jefferson tucked reservedly into a corner before he even realizes that he's looking for him.  Hamilton sips his wine, watching for several moments as his usually extravagant coworker practically sinks into the wallpaper.  Jefferson looks, for the first time that Alexander is seeing, nervous and shy.  It should be wildly out of character, but the man looks right at home hunched into himself and fidgeting.  
It does something strange to Alexander.  
It makes him want to comfort Thomas.  
Alex has known the identity of his soulmate from the moment they first argued, but never has he seen anything in the pompous southerner that has made him feel like _this._   Before he makes the conscious decision, he is setting his half finished wine down on a table along with the glass he had gotten to take to Eliza.  He crosses the room to speak not with his wife, but with his rival.  
"Jefferson."  
"What do you _want_ , Hamilton?  Can't you see I'm busy?"  
"Busy?  Madison is dancing with Dolly while you sulk in the corner like a ghoul."  
"I _was_ relaxing and enjoying some time to myself, but I can see that you've decided to ruin my plans."  
"I have a better plan," Alexander proposes, and when Thomas looks skeptical, words slip from Hamilton's lips without permission from his brain.  
"Dance with me."  
"You want me to dance with _you_?"  
"I'm glad you understand," Hamilton teases, taking hold of Jefferson's hand to pull him towards the center of the room.  He can feel, beneath his fingertips, Jefferson's nervous pulse, and it reassures him that he's made the right decision.  Alex wants nothing more than to take Thomas' mind off of his obvious nerves.  As if by divine intervention, a new song begins just when they start their rotation across the dance floor.  
 _'I know you_ ,' the music croons, and before he can stop himself Alexander is singing.  No, not just singing along, he admits to himself.  He's serenading Thomas, syncing with the words over the speakers and watching his soulmate's face for any sign of returned affection.  
"I danced with you once upon a dream... I know you, that gleam in your eyes so familiar a gleam."  
' _Please_ ,' he thinks, seamlessly conceding the lead to Thomas when the man frowns and twists them, _'Please don't break my heart, now that it's resting in your hands_.'

Under Thomas' guidance, their simple box step evolves into something graceful.  They spin and twirl as smoothly as if they had been practicing their whole lives together.  (As if they were meant to spend their whole lives together.)  
 _'Are you feeling this too?_ ' Alexander wonders, _'Or is it just in my head_?'  
"You sing, Alexander?" Jefferson is smiling down at him warmly, one hand on Alex's shoulder blade, the other resting on his hip, and the intimacy of it all has Hamilton trailing off his melody.  
"Occasionally.  We all have hobbies."  
"I play the violin," Thomas admits, before lifting Alexander as they make the next turn, setting him down some degrees later without seeming to notice the move he had pulled.  
"Oh do you?" Alex hears his own voice distantly, dazed as he is by the way the light from the chandelier plays upon Jefferson's features.  
"With more skill than you sing, to be assured," Thomas smirks, and for once it doesn't seem inherently malicious.  Hamilton's reacting offense is over exaggerated, and when Thomas laughs in response he wears a frozen smile.  It's a beautiful sound, and with it any resistance Hamilton had to being in love is swept away.  There's no helping how he feels.  Does it change anything, though?  Would Thomas give him a chance, if he knew about the words that decorated his skin beneath Jefferson's palm this very instant?  
Alex bites his lip, thinking of Eliza.  How much would he be willing to sacrifice for a chance?  
Thomas spins him out, and he twirls back into the Southerner's arms straight into a steep dip.  
"Try not to drop me," his words bely the trust he actually feels.  
"You're so small, you're hardly heavy enough that that's a concern," Jefferson retorts, and there is no true condescension.  
The last note tapers off, and applause shocks them both back into a world outside each other.  Jefferson jerks him back upright quickly, and then straightens his suit, a hand going up to his buoyant hair, though somehow not a curl is out of place.  
Hamilton's own bun has migrated from the middle of the back of his head to low and loose at the nape of his neck; strands of hair slipping out to tickle his nose.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Pause._**  
Jefferson insults Hamilton, trying to start a fight; but in his scrambling to reassert their past animosity he oversteps.  
 ** _Here is where the story splits._ **  
Hamilton's marriage cannot survive his feelings for Jefferson, even should he refrain this night.  In the world we know, Alexander will cheat on his Eliza still; working off his frustration and feelings of betrayal in the bed of none other than Angelica Schuyler.  In this world, Alexander reacts to the vitriol spewed at him with aggression of his own, because despite what ether of them might think, the fight's quiet resolution as Alexander flees the room hurting is not for the best.  
 ** _The night resumes._**


	3. Chapter 3

" _I'm_ a bastard?  _I'M_ the bastard here?!"  
"Yes!  You're the bastard, Hamilton!  You're a bastard for your stupid useless finicky financial planning, and you're a bastard for being so _godammned_ self-assured, as if you're the only one with a brain in our entire office!  You're a bastard for asking me to dance today, and you're a bastard for making me want you like I've never wanted anyone before!  
"...What?" Hamilton says, because there must be a scratch on the record, and he's missed something vital in the skip.  
Jefferson looks away, turning his head to the side, and Hamilton is distracted by how good he looks in profile, backlit by the ballroom's golden glow.  
"I didn't ask to feel this way," Thomas says.  "I don't _want_ these feelings."  
Alexander swallows.  
"So you don't like me?"  
"Do you ever listen?  The problem is that I _do_ like you!  Go ahead, call me pathetic.  Pining after a married man.  Crushing on the office peacock."  
"...You think _I'm_ the office peacock?"  
Jefferson glares.  
"That's all you have to say?"  
Hamiton feels helpless.  
"I-"  
Angelica sees the look on Alexander's face; sees that it's the same one that Eliza wore not so long ago, and jealousy ignites in a way that it hadn't then.  
"You **BASTARD**!" she shrieks, marching up to slap Hamilton across the face, and the _**smack**_ is loud and clear throughout the room.  Only Alexander seems to know why it was administered; Thomas looks aghast.  
Eliza steps forward.  
"Angelica, what are you doing?" she asks with concern.  
"He _loves_ him!" she hisses.  
"Wha-?"  
"Alexander.  It's _requited_ ," she spits the word like it's a curse, and Thomas turns to Alexander disbelievingly.  
"Why would you-?"  
It's Alex's turn to look away.  
"You said that you couldn't help how you feel.  Do you really think it's any different for me?"  
Thomas' eyebrows crinkle, as he reads Hamilton like a code he's been given the key to.  
"What are you not telling me?" he asks, stepping back into Hamilton's space to scrutinize more closely.  
The crowd around them whispers, because what more can possibly be going unsaid?  
"Why... Did Angelica say _love_ , when I said _like_?"  
Hamilton twitches; at the question, at the whispers, at being held so intensely in Jefferson's gaze.  The mistake he makes is twitching his hand to his hip, stroking the lettering beneath his suit in a move automatic and usually overlooked.  
With everyone staring, there's no way it will be overlooked.  
When Jefferson grasps ahold of Hamilton's wrist and yanks his hand away, Alexander automatically clenches more tightly to his grip on the cloth, and it's pulled away in his fist.  There's only a glimpse, a single flash of ink, before Jefferson is letting go and looking into Hamilton's eyes with his own shocked wide.  
"Alexander, was that-"  
"If I said yes?"  
" _I'd_ say yes," Jefferson assures quietly, soft spoken and with no hesitation.  
No question has been asked aloud, but Thomas hears the one that Alexander wants to ask about the possibility of their future together.    
No one else had seen the slip of skin revealed clearly, but Eliza and Angelica seem to be following as well as they can using just the exchange of words.  They follow well enough for Eliza to make pseudo-calm strides towards them whilst shaking with rage.  
"That's it then?" she snarls.  "You whine and bitch about Jefferson's relocation from the French branch, spend a month complaining nonstop about his opposition to your proposed plan, swear up and down that you _hate_ the man, and then."  She takes a few deep breaths.  "And then.  You step away for a moment to get us drinks, and the next thing I know you're dancing with him.  Twirling across the floor like you didn't hideously bungle those lessons you had to take for our wedding."  
Alexander flinches, but Eliza doesn't have an ounce of pity to show.  
"That's right, I'm your _wife_ , Alexander.  Years of marriage, with our anniversary just around the corner.  But one dance with Mister High and Mighty over here, and you're suddenly willing to leave all of that behind?  In what world is that _sane_?  He swoops into your life, and you're gone on each other like soulmates!  What the hell is it about this particular office event that brings out the romantic in you?"  
A second twitch of Hamilton's hand cannot be ignored, and another round of whispers shivers through the room.  The hiss takes shape, the sound echoed a hundred times over in a haunting refrain.  
 _'Soulmates?  Soulmates._ **Soulmates**.'  
Her head shakes in denial, but Alexander doesn't refute the crowd.  
"Eliza.  Angelica.  If my heart was mine to give, then maybe we would have had a chance.  But it's always belonged to Thomas, even when... Even when I had given up on ever finding him.  Even when I thought we were doomed to be nothing more than the most passionate of office enemies."  
"Wait, Angelica?" Eliza inquires befuddled.  
"Now that he's in my sights," Alexander continues, not caring to elaborate why sister-in-law's name came up, "You have to understand, I can't throw away my shot.  I _won't_."  
The whispers grow to chatter.  The two men leave together, Alexander by Thomas' side, Jefferson's shock as obvious as his delighted wonder.  Angelica and Eliza leave separately, after an ugly screaming match about what is and isn't an appropriate email to send to your sister's husband.  James Madison watches the entire ordeal, start to finish, with wide eyes, his wife downing her wine like it's a competition.  If it is, Dolly and Washington are neck and neck while Lafayette and Burr are neck _ing_.  
" _Bruh_..." Hercules says, and for once it's quiet.  His boisterous personality has been so thoroughly overshadowed that it's no surprise he doesn't even attempt to redirect attention towards himself.  
"Yeah," Laurens agrees.  "That about covers it."


End file.
